How to Stop Russia from Hacking Another Election
Evidence is emerging that Russian operatives influenced the 2016 presidential election through hacking into state voter registration rolls, hacking into candidate’s private internal communications, leaking unfavorable information and creating false information, and amplifying both true and false information through social media bots. We have every reason to believe they will do it again, as will other countries or lone wolf malcontents.
We need to bolster America’s defenses — to build a wall against foreign interference in our elections. Here are ten things we could do, none of which require action or cooperation from the White House.
1) Use paper ballots, and audit them. We’ve known for years that touch-screen voting machines and the machines that tabulate ballots are vulnerable to hacking. Now we’ve learned that the Russians attempted to hack into voting machines, which would have allowed them to alter votes (although we don’t think they were able to.) At least twelve states still use voting machines that don’t produce a paper ballot. In addition, many of the states that do use paper ballots lack procedures to hand count a sample of ballots to audit the integrity of electronic tabulators.
2) Keep elections decentralized. Although it’s messy at times, our state-based system of administering elections means that hackers would need to infiltrate dozens of different technologies to swing a federal election through vote flipping.
3) Keep elections offline. The fact that most of our voting equipment is not connected to the internet and that most states do not allow widespread internet voting makes it harder for either foreign or domestic operatives to hack an election. Let’s keep it that way.
4) Implement Same Day Voter Registration everywhere. Fourteen states allow voters to register, or update their registrations, on election day. This ensures that if there is a problem with the voter rolls, due either to error or hacking, it can be fixed in time for a person to vote.
5) Overturn Citizens United. Corporations aren’t people and they certainly aren’t American citizens. But foreigners can and do establish corporations in the United States. One of the many problems with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that campaign spending is speech is that it opened the door for foreign money in our elections channeled through corporations. Nineteen states have called for a constitutional amendment that would reverse the Citizens United ruling, halfway to the 38 states necessary to ratify such an amendment. Other states should follow.
6) Choose your news sources wisely. Americans are becoming more attentive to the food we put into our bodies, but many of us are still consuming the equivalent of junk food for our minds. In a country that values freedom of the press, we cannot and should not count on the government to weed out sources of phony information. Citizens need to shoulder that responsibility ourselves.
7) Vote! And vote early. Both foreign operatives and political consultants spread negative information not so much to persuade people but to discourage a candidate’s supporters from turning out to vote. Don’t let them. Be sure to cast your ballot early to avoid long lines on election day. Efforts to hack into voter registration systems may not legally block people from voting if they can use Same Day Voter Registration or provisional ballots to fix errors. But these steps take time, which creates lines, which turn busy people away from the polls. Voting early or voting by mail can reduce lines and thereby make our elections harder to hack.
8) Candidates and campaigns need to beef up their own security. Russian hackers were able to access Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails due to some rookie mistakes. All campaigns should use secure systems, conduct better staff training in the future, and cooperate with the FBI to identify and deter cyber-attacks.
9) Social media needs to up its game. Facebook and Twitter need to get better at identifying bots and not relying on them to rank and promote content. Similarly, Google has allowed bots to alter search engine rankings and deceive Americans with misleading information. If these companies want to maintain their audiences, they need to improve the reliability and honesty of their products.
10) Campaigns, individuals, social media firms, and election officials need to report suspicious behavior to the FBI. This should go without saying, but claiming that “everyone” colludes with foreign operatives or domestic dirty trick consultants simply isn’t true, morally acceptable, or legal.
These common-sense steps should be embraced by both the left and the right. We can be certain that both parties will be victims of foreign hacking in the future, and as Americans we all have an interest in preventing that.
